The Partition Plan:
The Soviet Position on Partition

After the British decided to bring the Palestine issue
to the UN, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin's adviser
on Palestine asked a representative of the Jewish Agency
why the Jews agreed to let the UN decide the fate of
Palestine. "Don't you know," he said, "that
the only way a Jewish state will be established is if
the U.S. and Soviet Union agree? Nothing like that ever
happened. It cannot possibly happen. It will never happen."

In May 1947, however, Soviet delegate Andrei Gromyko
said:

The fact that no Western European State has
been able to ensure the defense of the elementary rights
of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the
violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations
of the Jews to establish their own State. It would be
unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny
the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration.

A few months later, the Soviet Union backed partition
and, subsequently, became the second nation to recognize
Israel. Ironically, the Arabs never blamed the Soviets
for their initial pro­Israel policy.